I don’t see this working out well for anybody. In fact, I see it as compromising the fitness of our entire military.

There. I said it.

Actually, I’ve often talked about just how wrongheaded the notion of allowing people with severe mental illnesses to be put under the stress of military training is, as well as allowing them into combat situations, where their fellow troops are relying on them to hold it all together and perform.

The Trump administration has decided to throw their hands up to this particular fight, apparently. The new year will bring in a wave of untreated mental health risks, in the form of military recruits already fighting the battle of their minds over their biology.

The Pentagon has announced that those suffering from gender dysphoria can enlist, as of January 1, 2018. The Trump administration will not fight the court order that blocked Trump’s initial ban of allowing transgender individuals to enlist.

The Department of Justice announced on Friday:

“The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the President’s and Secretary of Defense’s lawful authority in district court in the meantime,” the DOJ said in a statement.

This travesty of using our military as a petri dish in the experiment of social justice engineering started with the Obama administration, of course. His disastrous administration set a July 1, 2017 deadline to begin accepting transgendered recruits. It was Defense Secretary Jim Mattis who changed the deadline to January 1, 2018, just before Trump announced the ban.

In one of a few moves made by this president that I can truly get behind (shocking and befuddling all those who falsely believe my objections to Trump are an automatic reflex), Trump issued a memo in August directing the Pentagon to cease accepting transgender recruits. He also directed the Pentagon to put in place policies to deal with those deeply disturbed individuals that are already serving.

I actually thought there was already policy in place for mental unfitness. Don’t they get a medical discharge?

(Chime in, vets.)

There have been four lawsuits brought against the administration to oppose the ban.

These are lawsuits by people who don’t care about our troops and don’t care about the well-being of these confused men and women they’re trying to push into a high stress calling. They’re more worried about winning a battle in a culture war than winning actual wars.

Lower court judges blocked the ban, to allow the case to work its way through the judicial system. Federal appeals courts denied the administration’s attempts to appeal those stays.

The Trump administration were considering taking it to the Supreme Court, but dropped those plans on Friday, allowing for the acceptance of transgender recruits to begin with the new year.

It’s a big mistake, and it’s gambling with the lives of our troops.